Limited studies suggest that vitamin D or omega 3 fatty acids (n–3 FAs) supplementation may be beneficial for telomere maintenance; however, evidence from large randomized clinical trials is lacking. We hypothesized that vitamin D or n–3 FAs supplementation reduce leukocyte telomere length (LTL) attrition over time by leveraging the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL) trial.
Methods
VITAL is a large, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with a 2 × 2 factorial design of vitamin D3 (2000 IU/d) and marine n–3 FAs (1 g/d) supplements for 5 y among a representative sample of 25,871 US females aged ≥55 and males aged ≥50 y. The VITAL Telomere study (NCT04386577) included 1054 participants who were evaluated in person at the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center. LTL was determined by the Absolute Human Telomere Length Quantification Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction method at baseline, year 2, and year 4. The prespecified primary outcome measures were changes in LTL between baseline, year 2, and year 4. Analyses of intervention effect used mixed-effects linear regression models.
Results
LTL was measured in a total of 2571 samples from the 1031 participants at baseline, year 2, and year 4. Compared with placebo, vitamin D3 supplementation significantly decreased LTL attrition by 0.14 kilo base pairs (kb) (0.01, 0.27) over 4 y (P = 0.039). Overall trend analysis showed that the vitamin D3 supplementation group had LTLs that were ∼0.035 kb higher per year of follow-up compared with placebo group (0.002, 0.07, P = 0.037). Marine n–3 FAs supplementation had no significant effect on LTL at either year 2 or year 4.
Conclusion
Four-y of supplementation with 2000 IU/d vitamin D3 reduced telomere attrition by 140 bp, suggesting that vitamin D3 daily supplementation with or without n–3 FAs might have a role in counteracting telomere erosion or cell senescence.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002916525002552
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